The following Australian provisional patent applications are hereby incorporated by cross-reference. For the purposes of location and identification, U.S. patent applications identified by their U.S. patent application Ser. Nos. (U.S. Ser. No.) are listed alongside the Australian applications from which the U.S. patent applications claim the right of priority.
Not applicable.
The present invention relates to the supply of fluid, such as inks or the like to a mechanism such as an assay of printhead nozzles which consumes the ink supplied.
Recently, small compact printheads have been proposed for pagewidth printheads with the printheads operating at high speeds and, in a pagewidth manner, for the printing out of ink. A printhead able to print full color pictures relies upon the supply of at least three inks (cyan, magenta and yellow) and, when operated in a pagewidth manner, is likely to consume a substantial amount of ink.
Recently, a pagewidth print-head has been proposed having full color output capabilities. A problem in providing a full color slim pagewidth inkjet printhead is the supply of ink to the printhead nozzles. Obviously, a number of different colored inks have to be supplied to ink ejection chambers within an ink jet printhead in a continuous, efficient manner so as to support high speed operation.
Preferably, any ink supply to the ejection chambers can be constructed as part of the micro-electro mechanical systems (MEMS) production process.
It is an object of the present invention to provide an improved form of ink supply to ink ejection chambers included on an ink jet printhead for printing images.
In accordance with a first aspect of the present invention, there is provided a fluid supply means for supplying a plurality of different fluids to a plurality of different supply slots, wherein the supply slots are being spaced apart at periodic intervals in an interleaved manner, the fluid supply means comprising a fluid inlet means for each of the plurality of different fluids, a main channel flow means for each of the different fluids, connected to said fluid inlet means and running past each of the supply slots, and sub-channel flow means connecting each of the supply slots to a corresponding main channel flow means. The number of fluids is greater than 2 and at least two of the main channel flow means run along the first surface of a molded flow supply unit and another of the main channel flow means runs along the top surface of the molded piece with the subchannel flow means being interconnected with the slots by means of through-holes through the surface of the molded piece.
Preferably, the supply means is plastic injection molded and the pitch rate of the slots is substantially less than, or equal to 1,000 slots per inch. Further the collection of slots runs substantially the width of a photograph. Preferably, the fluid supply means further comprises a plurality of roller slot means for the reception of one or more pinch rollers and the fluid comprises ink and the rollers are utilised to control the passage of a print media across the printhead interconnected to the slots. The slots are divided into corresponding color slots with each series of color slots being arranged in columns.
Preferably, at least one of the channels of the fluid supply means is exposed when fabricated and is sealed by means of utilising sealing tape to seal the exposed surface of the channel. Advantageously, the fluid supply means is further provided with a TAB slot for the reception of tape automated bonded (TAB) wires.